The PadFone is a sleek-and-fast 5-inch Android phone, that comes with an additional 10.1 inch screen that turns it into a tablet. The overall cost of the package, including the phone and the screen, is €999.

The idea of the PadFone is this: you’re working away on your phone, decide you need a little more screen space, and so slot the phone into the back of the bigger screen, instantly giving you a 10.1-inch Android tablet that magically picks up exactly where you left off with the phone. (Hint: it really is still the phone, just with a bigger screen.)

The mechanics of it I get. What I don’t quite get is this: if all your data is synced to the cloud, like it usually is nowadays, what advantage arises from having a phone that converts into a tablet, rather than just a phone and a tablet that are both in sync with each other?

Asus has this to say on the topic: “The unique two-in-one nature of ASUS PadFone removes the tedious need to synchronize data between smartphone and tablet”.

But if the syncing is automatic, as it usually is nowadays, is it really that tedious that you would throw all your eggs in one basket and but a two-in-one? Well, two eggs in one basket, anyway.

So now we’ve thought about it some more, and there are a few things that could make a two-in-one worthwhile:

One is movies. Transferring movies from a phone to a tablet and vice versa, something that often needs to be performed whilst wedged in the seat of a plane or bus, is tedious just like Asus says it is. For me usually involves holding two microSD cards in my pursed lips, and hoping I don’t inhale them while I swap them between the devices. Simply slotting a phone into a tablet would be much easier.

The same goes for music. Music services like Songl, Spotify and Rhapsody may let you download music to your phone or tablet, but you generally have to do it separately for each device. Playlists get synced, but not the music itself. More than once I’ve picked opened up my tablet on a plane only to discover all the downloaded music was back on the phone. A two-in-one would solve that, too, with the added benefit that it would only count as one device against your music subscription, which may well have a limit on the number of devices you can use with each subscription.

Another advantage of a two-in-one is apps, or more to the point the layout of apps and widgets on homescreens. If, like me, you’re quite particular about how you set up your homescreen, then you’ll know that it can take a bit of effort to set up a homescreen and maintain it just so. With a two-in-one, you only have to do that once.

Of course, that presumes that you would set up your phone the same way you would set up your tablet, and that may not be the case for everyone. Indeed, that would hardly be the case for anyone. Tablets tend to be used in landscape mode and phones tend used to be in portrait mode, and those two modes might well call for different configurations.

It will be interesting to see how Asus copes with the difference between the two modes, when the PadFone Infinity comes out some time in the second quarter.

The Australian Financial Review

BY John Davidson

John Davidson is the award-winning sketch writer in charge
of Australia's pre-eminent (but sadly fictitious) Digital Life
Laboratories. A former computer programmer, documentary maker and
foreign correspondent, John now reviews all the gadgets he can ill
afford to own.

BY John Davidson

John Davidson is the award-winning sketch writer in charge
of Australia's pre-eminent (but sadly fictitious) Digital Life
Laboratories. A former computer programmer, documentary maker and
foreign correspondent, John now reviews all the gadgets he can ill
afford to own.